![]() Newton, however, was learning from another science that already set an enduring standard of achievement: geometry. ![]() That set a standard of achievement that the other sciences sought to emulate. In the seventeenth century, Newton found one simple system of physics that worked for both the heavens and the earth. We now often think of physics as the science that leads the way. ![]() This long history of one book reflects the immense importance of geometry in science. Oliver Byrne's 1847 edition of the first 6 books of Euclid's Elements used as little text as possible and replaced labels by colors. Title page of Sir Henry Billingsley's first English version of Euclid's Elements, 1570 Oxyrhynchus papyrus showing fragment of Euclid's Elements, AD 75-125 (estimated) In living memory-my memory of high school-geometry was still taught using the development of Euclid: his definitions, axioms and postulates and his numbering of them. It is only in recent decades that we have started to separate geometry from Euclid. It has been the standard source for geometry for millennia. Since 1482, there have been more than a thousand editions of Euclid's Elements printed. It was written by Euclid, who lived in the Greek city of Alexandria in Egypt around 300BC, where he founded a school of mathematics. This is the work that codified geometry in antiquity. ![]() The answer comes from a branch of science that we now take for granted, geometry. But which is the most studied and edited work after it? That is a little harder to say. In the totality of our intellectual heritage, which book is most studied and most edited? The answer is obvious: the Bible. The definitions, axioms, postulates and propositions of Book I of Euclid's Elements. ![]()
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